Alix Ingber, who has taught Spanish at Sweet Briar College since 1980, is a Buildings & Grounds guest blogger who will contribute occasional updates on this season’s progress at the Sweet Briar Community Garden.

As the weather warms in Central Virginia and the academic year winds down, a number of faculty and staff members at Sweet Briar College turn their attention to two-thirds of an acre of land above an abandoned dairy.undefinedActually, the Sweet Briar Community Garden, once a summer activity, now keeps us busy for much of the year.

We decided to start the garden in the late fall of 2001. To be honest, I don’t think we gave much thought to the scope of this endeavor; we just wanted to play in the dirt and go home with organic vegetables.undefinedMost of us had very limited gardening experience, and couldn’t have realized how much work would be involved.undefinedWe requested a bit of land on which to establish the garden.undefinedHere’s what we got:

There was no electricity on the site, and the ground — red clay, for the most part — was hard and covered with brush.undefinedAs for water, there was a single pump on a distant corner of the site.undefinedAnd there were deer.undefinedLots of deer.

Four tips for starting a community garden:

On Groundhog Day of 2002 we cleared the site of scrubby trees and gathered and burned the brush. A member of the grounds crew (also a founding member of the garden) was able to use college equipment to plow the site.undefinedSweet Briar College has a riding program, so we had access to manure and wood shavings from the stables to plow into the soil.undefinedWe ordered six truckloads of organic compost from a local paper mill, for just the cost of hauling, and mixed this into the soil as well. We dug trenches and laid water lines from the pump to make spigots accessible throughout the site.

We knew we would have to do something to keep the deer out.undefinedThe best solution would be an electrified fence, but we had no electricity.undefinedWe ended up building a fence powered by a small solar generator, which has served us admirably.undefinedBy early May, here’s what we had:

We spent about $2,000 getting everything set up the first year. Of that, $1,000 in seed money for early expenses was donated by a generous alumna and her husband.undefinedIn addition to nominal dues based on the size of their plots, gardeners made one-time donations to help get things going. undefined

We are now well into our eighth season. I hope you’ll follow our progress this year and join us with your comments, questions, and ideas. — Alix Ingber